Returning to our podcast, NSA veteran Bill Binney lays out the "swindle" of domestic surveillance, and explains how phone calls of Trump, Flynn and others were intercepted, then leaked.In this wide-ranging conversation, Binney comments on recent disclosure that 90% of the US surveillance budget is spent on offensive cyberwarfare, but Americans only hear about attacks from Russia and others. Binney argues that Americans have been "swindled" to trade privacy for security, swindled by demands for more power and money for the spooks, and are about to be swindled into a new war with Russia.

We talk about Archive 7, which exposed malware used by the CIA that leaves a trail to Russia, and how US agencies identify "zero day" vulnerabilities in hardware and software--and don't tell American tech companies, in order to facilitate easier snooping.

Binney has some choice comments about his former boss, Gen. Mike Hayden, and we cite comments from Trevor Timm's recent article. We also discuss the recent commentary that Binney co-wrote with former CIA analyst Ray McGovern.

We talk about Sean Hannity's recent interest in exposing state surveillance, now that Trump is seen as a victim of it.

And we go deep on the Trump-Russia controversy, the role of private security firm Crowdstrike in originating the claim the Russia hacked the DNC, the antics of Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) as chair of House intel committee, and the January 6 intelligence report that re-hashed evidence-free claims of Russian interference in the election which was mostly an attack on the little-watched RT network.